In the wake of this year's php|tek conference, Marco Tabini has unveiled his secrets to the "master conference evil plan" that he and the php|architect crew have been putting in to action for their conferences:

For the past four years, I have put a lot of work into executing a strategic plan that is tangentially connected with our conferences. [...] Instead [of trying to force interaction], I decided to try and slowly steer things in a direction that would have made our conferences closer to a family reunion than a dry business meetup.

He mentions the steps in his "evil plan" (for conference domination?) - community participation, setting the right atmosphere for the exchange of ideas, the oh-so-secret choosing of the speakers and their leadership by example through participation with the speakers and other conference goers.